Enough
by IneffableSomething
Summary: In which all Crowley wants is a kiss. "Don't say you won't"


6000 years. 6000 years I'd looked at him, the most angelic of all of God's angels. 6000 years I'd seen that ever unchanging face, with its nose that scrunched up in delight, or disgust, eyes which cast down on me with disdain, or sometimes joy. We were alone in his bookshop, like we almost always were since the not-quite-Armageddon. I was looking at him still, and he was looking at me.

"Are you feeling alright, my dear?" he asks, voice like butterscotch in the air. I don't answer. For some reason I can't answer. "Would you like a mug of cocoa? Or a – a nice cup of tea?" He has taken my silence as an answer and I'm left floundering because I've always been content just like this but suddenly I want _more, _and this displays itself as:

"Do I look like I want _tea_, Angel? I'm a demon, why would I want something as insufferably quaint as _tea_?" He smiles at my sneer - no, wait, he's _laughing _at me and the whole universe expands before me, exploding into bright light as I try to affect an air of offence.

"What would you like, then?" the laughter is still on his lips, plump and warm and red and I know exactly what I want. I'm next to him in less than a heartbeat and he flushes crimson, the universe growing brighter and bigger still, never enough, never big enough to hold all of us.

One of my arms snakes its way around his waist, the other has found its way into the curls of his hair and I'm not entirely convinced I had told them to do so.

"Aziraphale…" My voice is low and hoarse as I bend my head, inch by torturous inch, until our mouths are mere millimetres apart.

"Crowley," His voice is a whimper, almost a whisper, and I realise in an earth-shattering instant that he is terrified. I can't help myself. I'm a demon after all.

"Don't tell me you won't." A beat.

"I won't." And the universe collapses in on itself there and then, stars and galaxies, constellations and planets and dust imploding, drawing in, in, in, sucking me into nothingness with them. The last thing I see before The End of Everything is his eyes, sparkling blue like the ocean but purer than any sea could ever be.

"I won't tell you that I won't, Crowley, only that I can't. Not yet." And he doesn't tag on the "I'm sorry" at the end but we both hear it as clearly as if he'd shouted it across the room, and I can see it flowing in his eyes like the tide coming in.

So I pull myself away, untangle our limbs and increase the distance between our faces. The removal of his warm breath on my cheek is jarring and uncomfortable, but I force myself not to dive back in, to take what I want anyway. It's against my nature, but for the angel, anything. On my journey outward from All I Could Ever Want my hand brushes, completely innocently, against his, and a shock fires its way up and down my body with a cold spark that makes me think I could discorporate right there and then, and makes me wish I could reach out and take that soft hand in my own.

He does it for me. The unnecessary breaths I have been taking for the past 6000 years get caught in my throat as his fingers curl around my own, warm, secure, _sure, _and I'm half convinced the hellfire at my core burns away into angelic light.

"Angel-" I don't know what to say, but I have to say _something, _right? I have to let him know he doesn't have to, I can wait, another 6000 years if that's what he needs –

"Shh. Shhh" His voice breaks through my stream of consciousness. "I may not be able to go quite that far just now," And his words are rolling over me like waves, gentle, cooling, washing away the remnants of my earlier panic. "But I can certainly manage _this" _and here he squeezes my hand tight! A wonderful, affirming, reassuring gesture that causes stars to shower down in front of my eyes. I wouldn't be surprised if a few fell down from the sky, too.

I raise our joined hands to stare at them in wonder, wrapped together like I sometimes imagine our souls on those unpleasant nights when I can't drag my body into sleep. I move my gaze onto his face, a soft glow surrounding his white hair like a halo – wouldn't be surprised if it really is his halo – and he's got that look on his face, the one that says "I hope I'm doing the right thing. I hope this is okay. I hope this is-"

"It's alright Angel. This is enough" His relief is a physical thing, melting and evaporating off him like steam on the pavement. All the other words in the world get stuck somewhere in the back of my throat and I curse my stupid sunglasses for being in the way – if only he could read my eyes the way I read his – there's a novel longer than the war of the worlds hidden in mine, I'm sure of it.

His breath quickens and his eyelashes flutter as he blinks, butterfly wings in the breeze, and I realise he doesn't need to see it. He can feel it. He can _feel_ it, and there couldn't be anything better in the universe. Not the moon, not the stars, not Alpha Centauri, and when I suggest lunch he suggests we walk, because that way I won't have to let go.


End file.
